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Ice Hockey: Skaters falter, team starts slippery slide

After coming out hot and starting out 4-0, the hockey team is now 4-2 after losses to Churchill, and more recently Richard Montgomery.

In their last game against RM, they lost 4-3. Senior Ethan Heiberger scored two minutes into the game, and after RM tied it up a few minutes later, freshman Brett Strauss scored to get the lead back, on an assist from Heiberger. “It’s nice to have some points, but I would rather win than have points, no question about it,” Heiberger said.

In the second period senior Zack Lechner scored to make it 3-1 on an assist from freshman Jason Liu, Liu’s first point of the season. There was lots of back and forth play in the second, and lots of shots from Wootton, but they only scored one goal.
The third period did not start off well, as RM scored two quick goals to make it 3-3. Sophomore Sean Raynor started his first game of the season, and though he only let in one goal in the first two periods, he let in two in the third. Sophomore Colin Brick was then put in, and he let in one more goal at the end of the period, which completed RM’s comeback.

The team was missing lots of players who have been important in past games. Freshmen Daniel Tomashevsky and Robert Neill, who have been getting lots of playing time, both missed the game. Additionally, junior John Billingsley, who has eight points in two games, continues to miss time with injuries. Sophomore Zeming Chen missed the game as well. Freshman goalie Riley Jordan was a healthy scratch for the game, and Strauss has been missing time with injuries.

The team is not as deep as it’s been in past years, and the injuries during the RM game took a toll on the players as they became tired and wore down in the third period. Select JV players were called up to help take their places. The team graduated lots of seniors last year, and it’s affecting the team in a negative way.

The game on Dec.15 is against Churchill varsity two, who they also played this past Friday, too late to be covered in this issue. Both games against V2 are games that should be won, as V2 is the worse of Churchill’s two varsity rosters, and they were in a lower division last year. Between those two games is a game against Whitman on Dec. 8, who the team already played and beat 8-0. “These next three games are more important than people think because if we win them all we will be sitting at 7-2, and in great shape come playoff time,” Lechner said.

For an article on the student section, known by many as the most rowdy in the county, see page eight in the opinion section.